The models in Siki Im’s lookbook seem to inhabit two places. On the one hand, they’re at the beach, surrounded by sand, sea, and sky. Yet, on the other hand, they look distant, pallid, somber. The designer had been thinking about Georgia O’Keeffe, in particular the pre-eminent painter’s exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum (one week left), which sheds as much light on her personal, recreational style as it does on the monumentality of her work. That she wore ordinary clothes—blue jeans, stripes, color—in her off-time, while reserving her dark, imposing, monastic wardrobe for her public persona, fascinated Im. “She had a secret attire, a sort of double life,” he said. “I feel like I’m on the same path.”

Which is to say, a similar dichotomy could be found in his Spring men’s collection, in which he balanced the urge to work only in natural fibers, guided purely by inspiration (as well as the CFDA, who put him in touch with the fabric trade show Milano Unica and 19th-century Italian mills), with the need to follow the rules of functionality. The blue stripes of varying widths and directions on poplin shirts and smocks, as well as a recurring kimono motif, represented the pioneering artist’s unconventional style, as did a pair of shorts, on which, after a “Morrissey moment,” Im printed a poem he wrote. While a fanny pack that endlessly unfolded into an anorak nodded to an adherence to utility (fun fact: Im is a self-described “super nerd” collector of first-generation Transformers toy robots, circa the ’80s).